


|sun through the ashes|

by littlekaracan



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Umbara Campaign, Canon-Typical Clone Massacring, Cody Goes To Battle Instead Of Waxer, Hurt/Comfort, Jedi Code Introspection, M/M, Major Character Injury, Pong Krell Is A Bitch, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-13 08:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28900386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlekaracan/pseuds/littlekaracan
Summary: It made little difference where they had landed. There was a battlefield, here, everywhere, bodies strewn about - and there was some 212th gold among the armour, and it was so dark, as it was everywhere on Umbara - and there wasnoise,medics yelling orders, taking precedence over all other officers, but it didn’t appear that many officers were here either way, most probably brought back to the base or dead or -Good Force, where was Cody?Obi-Wan couldn’t help it - he ran down to the ground along with his men like a Padawan, as quickly as his legs would carry him, and searched.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 32
Kudos: 258





	|sun through the ashes|

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lightasthesun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightasthesun/gifts).



> thank you for the prompt and for being so kind and patient with me @lightasthesun!! <33
> 
> okay so this was a blast to write!!! may have gotten a bit self-indulgent but it just be how it be hehehe,, thank you for checking out the fic!!

The blasterfire had ceased, temporary as it may be, and most troopers were using the silence to get some shut-eye, trying not to worry about waking up to the Umbarans activating yet another weapon they had no experience in trying to mitigate the damages of. But sleep was never much more peaceful during campaigns, really.

It was, as of now, as quiet as could be in the camp of the 212th.

Hushed chatter was commonplace, but most was coming from the General’s tent. Though, to be frank, the officers inside weren't exactly known for their desire to rest much. The opposite, in fact.

"We cannot afford to let up the siege for anything," Dee was explaining, her words accompanied by the sharp cuts of her hand, her helmet tucked neatly under her free arm. "But they're launching small offenses outside the city walls that are swiftly depleting the resources of the men I've stationed at crucial points around the perimeter. They’re aiming to weaken us until their reinforcements arrive. That, or they’re trying to bait us into spearheading an attack."

Obi-Wan hummed, scratching at his beard. "And the airbase?"

"No signs of transports stopping, sir," Waxer reported, automatically raising his eyes to the ceiling of the tent. "It's like the entire place is stuffed full of war supplies." 

"You're probably not too far from the truth, Lieutenant," Obi-Wan chuckled humourlessly, turning to raise an eyebrow at the last clone in the tent. "No news from General Krell, either?"

"Holosilence, sir," Cody replied, not looking up at him. He was leaning in to study the holomap of Umbara they had projected from a caster on the table in the center of the tent, checking over the new conflict reports and counting troop losses. 

Obi-Wan sighed, shaking his head. "If they don't deal with that base soon, we'll be the ones who’ll end up having to call in reinforcements," he speculated, crossing his arms over his chest. "And I doubt the GAR can spare any more firepower right now, much less troops that would get here in time. Our only hope is the 501st and General Krell, right now.” He withdrew from the map a little. “I don’t understand. Anakin said it’d take a fortnight at most, and here we are. And, according to Krell, nothing out of the ordinary is taking place on their end. What could be hindering them so incessantly?”

He stepped closer again, turning to Dee while reaching up to point at a blue-lit spot on the sphere. “Is that their newest position, Lieutenant?”

“Yessir,” she replied, drawing the grid closer with her hand to point at a more precise location. “They’ve been based here for a day or so and should be making progress reports soon enough.”

“Thank you, Dee,” he said, waving his hand for the map to shrink again. “It’s slow progress, but moving over Umbaran terrain while constantly having to fight off the locals cannot be good for time. Can you show me your advancements on the capital?”

“Right here, sir.” She drew his attention to the southern half of the planet, finding a large target and numbering the camps around it with practiced precision. “They’re surrounded from all sides, we drew them back from the north during the last two rotations. I tried to send scouts above the city, but they have more air support shuttles than I have men.” 

“We’ll keep that in mind for when we have to lead a ground assault,” he assured her. “If the 501st comes to aid, we’ll have more than enough squadrons to take them head-on.”

As if summoned, a sharp beep rang across the tent. Obi-Wan turned to look at his Commander, who glanced down at the communicators attached to his forearm.

“General Kenobi,” Cody called to him, beckoning him over with his hand. “Incoming comm, sir. From General Krell.”

“Must be the report. Answer it, Cody. I’ll be there in a moment.” He nodded to Dee. “Does that conclude your progress?”

“As of right now, sir, yes.”

“Very well. Keep me aware of any new developments.”

She snapped a sharp salute, moving to the side again to let him circle Cody. “Yessir.”

Out of Cody’s comm rose a hologram of a Besalisk, waiting idly for him to show up. He offered no greeting, and Cody kept his silence accordingly, unclipping the comm from his vambrace and holding it out for Obi-Wan to see better. Obi-Wan offered a thankful nod.

“Master Krell,” he greeted with a slight bow of his head, brow furrowed. “Are there any updates on the airbase - is the 501st faring well?”

_“As well as can be, in such circumstances,”_ the hologram replied, pressing his lips together. Obi-Wan allowed himself a half-smile. If anyone could pull solutions to an impossible situation out of thin air, it was their officers. Rex was a good man, capable, they ought to have been making good progress. _“We have, however, been made aware of a new tactic the foe has employed - they have gotten through to the bodies of the men we were forced to abandon beyond enemy lines and stripped them of their armour, disguising themselves as part of the 501_ _st_ _Legion.”_

Despite watching Krell, Obi-Wan didn’t miss the way Cody’s hand tightened around the caster comm. On campaigns, all the clones had to express themselves through was their armour, painted in unique, personal patterns. To strip them of this - no, to steal this away from them - was perhaps the most disgraceful insult one could muster up. 

Yet, outside of that small twitch of his fingers, Cody didn’t move a muscle, and Obi-Wan had to marvel at his self-control. “I thought the Umbarans had not steeped that low. It appears I was wrong,” he said with a small shake of his head. “Very well, Master Krell. I’m going to make the assumption that you cannot send a platoon from the 501st because, once they clash, they will not be sure whether they’re shooting at their own men or not?”

_“Yes, Master Kenobi, precisely,”_ Krell replied, inclining his head. _“Something like that is best avoided, wouldn’t you say?”_

“Very much so.” Obi-Wan sighed. “We will send you a group of men as soon as we can afford it. Send the party’s location to my Commander, we’ll see what we can do.”

_“Of course. And may the Force be with you,”_ Krell added, adding a small bow for good measure. Obi-Wan chuckled.

“May it be with all of us, in such times.” He sighed again, deeper, once the hologram retracted into the comm, which Cody wasted no time in clipping back on. “Well, things certainly don’t seem to be getting any better.”

“We’ve had worse,” Cody said, shortly. Obi-Wan felt a thin smile twist his face at Cody’s words. Cody couldn’t have known that they felt - well, a little more comforting than they probably should have. Yes, they’d certainly had worse. They’d get through this, as they did back then, and as they will in the future.

“That’s true,” he agreed, cut off by the ping from the caster letting them know of a new target pointer.

“Sir,” Dee caught his attention, spinning the hologram of the planet on the table with her finger carefully. “The area General Krell has directed us to is far enough away from the capital, but we have lost contact with our squads in the vicinity.”

Obi-Wan bit down on the inside of his lip for a moment, frowning. “Which means they have no way of knowing of the Umbarans’ deception.”

“As you say, sir.” She gave a short nod, moving out of the way for Cody, who stepped forward, looking at the grid. 

“We shouldn’t delay, then,” he said, looking up at Obi-Wan for confirmation. “They haven’t gotten too close to the base the 501st has taken yet, but if our forces are close by and unaware of the foe…”

“They’ll wipe them out like practice droids, sirs,” Waxer concluded, pressing his lips together. “We need more men.”

“You’re right, of course,” Obi-Wan agreed, raising his hand to his chin. “Normally, if the company of the Umbarans is as big as Master Krell’s notice claims it is, I’d say the situation calls for perhaps three dozen men. But if they’re going to have to juggle battle and explanations so our own men don’t start blasting the ones we send… I suppose we’ll have to dispatch more.”

“Sir, I can take care of them,” Cody spoke, putting his hands behind his back. “I'll take a part of Ghost - ” 

The camp shook, suddenly, with the impact of a fiery blast somewhere far away, the groans of a few awakened troopers filling the space for a moment. The distance was great, though, it sounded more like an accidental or leftover detonation somewhere on the abandoned battlefield, not a missile intentionally sent to cause them harm.

Something tugged down at Obi-Wan’s stomach, an unpleasant sensation in his chest, from his core, the cold grip of a Force warning. _Incoming_. He ignored it after checking that the blast was simply a failed shell exploding in the distance, a little surprised by the delay of the warning. Shaking his head, he said, simply, resuming conversation, “I’d prefer it if you remained by my side until we take the capital, Cody. All the intelligence on the city’s forces goes through you first.”

“Waxer’s platoon is not large enough to take on both tasks simultaneously,” Cody pointed out, and Waxer nodded, albeit hesitantly. 

“If we joined forces with Lieutenant Dee’s ground platoon, though…” he suggested, but almost immediately shook his head, remembering himself just as Dee objected.

“I can’t split off any more of my forces, sirs, we’re stretched out thin as it is.” She had clamped down on Umbaran resistance around the capital efficiently enough, but even this iron grip was lessening. They were slowly approaching the line beyond which they would require miracles in order to see victory. 

And Obi-Wan was not unaware of the fact that, sometimes, only a certain strategic group could make such miracles happen. When it came to the 212th, this group included Cody more often than not. 

And perhaps something was heavier than it should’ve been, on his chest, when Cody spoke of leading an assault into uncertain lands again, and perhaps he wasn’t over the scare of having a _cavern_ cave in on his men during the most recent campaign, perhaps he didn’t want to once more sense the lights of his soldiers’ lives going out one by one, one by one, all the while he couldn’t do anything but try and keep himself from being snapped in half by the Force as he pulled rock after rock up and over their bodies, quite literally tasked with the mission of moving a mountain.

Perhaps he’d promised himself, after pulling Cody out and checking for a pulse, over and over again, that, as long as it was within his power, he wouldn’t let it happen again. And perhaps he was now letting it happen again. 

He shook his head, chasing those thoughts away. They were just bad memories, now. There were few mountains on Umbara, and they were at war. He couldn’t feasibly keep his men out of danger during a campaign – the best he could do was make sure it wasn’t pointless danger. And this most certainly was nothing of the sort. “I understand, Dee.” Something was keeping him from speaking further. Something. _Incoming_ . _Look out. Incoming._ The Force wasn’t letting up, clogging his head so densely one might’ve thought the entire sky should’ve been littered with whistling missiles. But it wasn’t. What was going on?

He spoke in spite of it all. “You’ll have to redirect most local comm lines to Lieutenant Waxer, in this case - I’m assuming you’re leaving him in your place here.” 

“That’s the plan, sir.” He turned to Dee, clearing his throat. “If you won’t be using the gunships in the near future, I could put my men in a few.”

“Yessir.” She nodded, lifting her comm. “I’ll find the faster ones. A pair of LAAT/is, would that work? They should get you and the men to the right location in a day or so, give or take a few hours. They’ll lift off high enough for you to avoid most ground assaults, even with Umbaran technology.” 

“That’ll do.” Obi-Wan found Cody looking at him, then. “Your permission, sir.”

He opened his mouth - and felt, for a moment, like he was going to be sick. _Incoming, incoming, incoming. Look out, look, look._

What the hell.

“Just a moment.” He turned, sharply, and stepped outside the tent, squinting at the dark sky. There was nothing - no sound, no missile, not even a shell. 

Maybe he was really starting to mix up his own anxiety and the Force. Even so, deep inside, he knew that wasn’t it; they were always very, very different. But the Force had never warned him so explicitly for nothing, the Force was not there to spread paranoia. 

Then what was it warning him about? So stubborn, too. He could hardly focus, but war did not wait for him to recollect his thoughts. He had to overlook it, at least for now.

“Sir?” Cody called, from inside the tent, leaning forward slightly, following his glance, studying the empty sky for a moment before looking back down at him.

“You have it,” Obi-Wan told him, mildly, still staring up at the stars and trying to make sense of things.

“What?”

He shook his head and returned to the table, missing the rather lost looks Waxer and Dee exchanged between each other. “My permission. You have it.”

It all abruptly went silent, in Obi-Wan’s mind, leaving behind a sense of strange, foreboding emptiness. He took a few steadying breaths, trying to get rid of the thoughts. Anxiety, that felt more like it, he told himself. He was suddenly so worried over nothing. It wasn’t going to help anyone.

Cody just furrowed his brow. “Is everything alright, sir?”

“Of course, Commander.” Now, it made no sense to spread any feelings of unease among his troops. He was better than that. He managed a small smile, turning to look at Cody. “I don’t need to tell you to exercise caution, yes?”

“Not unless you want to specify, sir.” There was a note of amusement in his voice. “Your type of caution, General Skywalker type of caution…”

“The type that will not get you and your men killed,” Obi-Wan corrected lightly, making no presumptions about what his type of caution looked like through Cody’s eyes. He had heard the man’s displeased sighs after handing him back his lightsaber and - or - cloak enough times already.

He was proven right when Cody nodded, pensively. “Ah. So – neither, sir.” 

“Very well,” he chuckled, giving him a half-hearted glare before putting his hands on the table, glancing at the Lieutenants. “Waxer, Dee, you’re dismissed. Thank you for the updates.”

The two clones nodded their heads as one before ducking out of the tent - he could hear them strike up a quiet conversation as soon as they were mostly out of his earshot. Cody stayed, hands folded neatly behind his back, helmet the only one left on the table. He waited for Obi-Wan to speak, still and silent. Not unlike the shrill quiet crowding Obi-Wan’s thoughts in. 

"Cody." He came closer to touch his arm. Cody looked up at him, a question spelled clear across his face. Obi-Wan tapped a finger on his own vambrace, telling him, "You report through the direct line to my comm. I'll hook Waxer in as needed."

"Of course, sir," he replied shortly, taking a step back to put on his helmet. Just before it slid on his head, he seemed to think of something else, glancing at Obi-Wan with an eyebrow raised. There was the briefest of smiles on his face when he said, tilting his head, "I’d say I’ll send reports every half hour, but you’re not General Koon, are you, sir?”

Obi-Wan chuckled. “Don’t give me ideas, my dear Commander.”

Cody glanced down, his smile widening just the slightest bit, and, before Obi-Wan could get a grip on his thoughts, he wondered if perhaps taking more jabs at his dignity’s expense was worth it. If only to get Cody to smile like that a little more often.

* * *

Cody had informed him of the supply ship’s fall perhaps a couple of hours ago, and they were finally readying to spearhead an assault on the capital. At last. Perhaps his company was physically close enough, already, to see the craft’s destruction with their own eyes. 

_“We’re nearing the coordinates provided,”_ Cody had explained to him, afterward, his image over the comm flickering as the connection faded in and out in the dense forests. _“So we may go dark for a good few clicks.”_

“Very well,” Obi-Wan said, leaning back and trying to settle the growing pit of anxiety in his stomach that had made its home there since the strategy meeting the other day. The campaign was ending, such a presentiment always lingered in the air just before, the events rolling quickly to their final conclusion. Nevertheless, he couldn’t find it in himself to try and relax when the most important battles still lay ahead. “We’re making quick progress. Dee has been chasing down their squadrons that attempted to breach the air lines, and the rest of the men are ready to march. I suspect this will all be over sooner than we expected, thankfully.”

_“Leave some tanks for when we come back, sir,”_ Cody asked with a small, humourless smile, and Obi-Wan chuckled, nodding his head.

“No promises, Commander. May the Force be with you.”

With that, the image disappeared. The pit in Obi-Wan’s stomach failed to, even after confirming that his men were faring well. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, letting the heavy darkness of the Force flood him, trying to understand where all of it was coming from, what all of it was warning against - 

_No, no, no, no._

He furrowed his brow. Pointless panic didn’t make sense. Nothing but a tight animalistic fear just didn’t make _sense_. He once again had to admit to himself that the Force didn’t warn this way, that the Force only brought a sharp, stinging alarm before the moment of impact, a blank chill of regret after the blatantly wrong choice. 

But then again, the stream of pleas was most certainly not coming from Obi-Wan’s mind, either.

Maybe it was one of his men.

_Pay attention!_

Or maybe a low-laid vision. Obi-Wan had never been too prone, but he’d had a few, when he was younger. Too few to remember just how it felt. Maybe this was it.

He shuddered with the speculations of what kind of vision was this persistent, but such thoughts were never helpful. Especially before battle. He’d figure it out after the capital was taken - and it would be taken, he was sure of it now, he couldn’t afford to think of anything else.

But perhaps the vision was warning him about the upcoming battle. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time, but he’d never had it sound so… desperate.

He pressed his lips together and reached for his belt, checking over his lightsaber, because what else could he possibly do? If they happened to fall into a tight spot during the battle, it’d be up to them to claw themselves out. It was so before every clash, every conflict. The Force didn’t dash out helpful alarms before every one, unfortunately.

By his side stood Waxer, who was admittedly not as used to his preparations as Cody was, not that Obi-Wan would ever ask that of either of them. For all Cody’s love of poking fun at his tendency to drop his lightsaber, Obi-Wan always knew it’d find his way back. Incidentally, it was usually through Cody’s hands. 

He pushed such thoughts away for later. The soldiers were ready to march, they only needed his word.

_“Sir,”_ rang Dee’s voice from his comm, more strained than normal but still steady. She was in one of their fighters, giving him constant surveillance of the city from above. _“We’ve neutralized the technological defenses around the walls, only the defenders themselves remain. The path is clear for your charge. With your permission, this is the last progress report.”_

“Very well, Lieutenant.” He raised his comm to his face so she could hear him. “Continue the air assault. We will lead the attack from the ground. If the situation changes or if reinforcements arrive, notify me or Lieutenant Waxer immediately.”

_“Yessir!”_

The comm clicked off, and Obi-Wan looked on to the city, crossing his arms. "I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered, more to himself than to anybody else. Waxer heard it, naturally, standing right next to him.

"It's just a bad feeling, sir," he told him, and while Obi-Wan knew Waxer just wanted to calm him down, he also knew that a bad feeling and _a bad feeling_ rang differently in his head. 

War was gutting him, slowly. War was easing him, barely noticeably, into fear, into the constant tug of emptiness in his chest, war was teaching him to be wary of each noise, to jump in defense at any unexpected scratch in the dark. War was waking him in the middle of the night and forcing him to get up, to pace, to look through every report he’d sent, every request he’d put in, anything to save as many men as he could, to keep it all from falling apart. War was shaking him awake with names of troopers he’d never even met on his lips, horrible dreams borrowed from his men’s subconscious, their own fear permeating every moment of his rest, in spite of them never showing it to his face. War was stitching the parts he tore away from himself back to him with thread spun from the scent of scorched flesh and paranoia, and what could he do about it, what could any of them do about it?

He smiled, bleakly, to Waxer, and agreed, “Of course, Lieutenant. You’re right.” 

Not a half hour later, the battle would start.

At the call of the Lieutenants, as the forces clashed into each other, firing and shouting, for a moment, Obi-Wan had the luxury of forgetting everything. Just for a moment. There was suddenly nothing around him but smoke, darkness, and his lightsaber to guide the way. Even the Force felt strangely distant, as if it’d drawn away to keep him from distractions as well. 

The only warnings in the Force during battle were usually those he drew from it himself, directions, alarms; bombs, blaster bolts, melée charges, all those the Force stung hard with as he shoved himself to the sides, as he ducked and leapt out of the way and returned missiles to their senders. The Umbaran technology had been far above that which they had anticipated, but it wasn’t like they couldn’t take the capital with their forces alone, even with the two gunships Cody’s squads had taken; they’d only needed the fall of the airbase, which, thankfully, the 501st had made happen just in time.

Sometimes, inbetween the Force warnings, there’d be silence around Obi-Wan. Not for the actual lack of noise, of course, because war was loud, war was deafening, both in battlefield and off it, but he’d drown himself so thoroughly in a state of focus, reach for the one goal of staying alive and keeping as many of his men alive as possible that he’d push away all other distractions, he wouldn’t even hear the shells dropping at his feet, the screams of the opposing armies.

Obi-Wan was not meant for this, but there was nothing in him that would forever resist getting used to it eventually, if only out of necessity, if knowing that, once this damned war was finally over, he’d have a lot of self-reflection to do. But right now, right now it was only his men and him against the Umbarans, well-deserving of their nickname as Shadow People, ducking out of the darkness and taking out entire squads, crushing people and machinery under their own tanks, droids - 

There was no silence in his head, now, as unusual as it seemed. He was used to a deafening emptiness in his brain before he’d need to turn to the side, to slice alongside an approaching crawler droid or the like, but it was like his thoughts were boiling, now, and no amount of focus could pry them away.

An Umbaran representative sat in the Senate so little time ago. The death of one man brought that of countless others with it, and nobody ever questioned it – all was fair in love and war, until – no, it _wasn’t._ What right did corrupt politicians have to Obi-Wan’s men’s lives? What right did the Senate have to dictate who lived and who died? They hadn’t held the hands of those who were fading, slowly and painfully, their brothers trying to hold their guts in, carry the bodies of those they knew were gone but couldn’t accept it yet; they hadn’t listened to grown men shake and wail in empty rooms after battles, they hadn’t heard the screams of soldiers that were torn to pieces by machinery and riddled with holes of blasterfire, and Force did he not want to know of these things either but this was where his duties had placed him, and if not him, then who else would do it?

Certainly not the Senate. Then why were they the ones waging the Wars they were not fighting themselves? Why did Obi-Wan’s men have to suffer for it, without a choice, without a right to withdraw? One by one, they fell around him, even now, some with a yelp, some so eerily silent you could think they weren’t ever here at all. 

He felt angry.

Somewhere, distantly, Obi-Wan could feel those thoughts growing foreign, the anger an unfamiliar twist in his head, realizing he was drifting out of his own subconscious and picking up on his men’s. That, he could mitigate, willingly pulling himself away from them, slamming up mental shields as a blaster bolt he deflected back into an Umbaran soldier’s shoulder pierced, as screams echoed.

But the Force was hardly bound by any shields. The Force was hardly ever quelled by anything but one’s undivided attention to its matters. And the Force halted him, and flew through all the walls he’d put up to keep his men’s thoughts, rage and anxiety and the warriors’ determination from flooding him, away.

_Pay attention!_

He shook his head. The silence was returning, slowly, but there were still so many threats around him. This was senseless chaos, he had to get to the center of the city, join Waxer, occupy the vital points and win the battle - 

_Look! Look! Incoming! Incoming!_

The voice of the Force never conveyed any panic. Obi-Wan’s own thoughts were spurring on such a tone, as he took step after step, entirely ignoring its call because sometimes he had to do so, sometimes he had no kriffing idea what it was telling him to do - yes, there were missiles all around him, yes, he was looking around, he was paying attention, slicing up and down, cutting, relentlessly, with his weapon acting more like a whip than a blade at this point, lasers like fires curling around shells and armours and bodies. 

He took step after step into the city, and, as always, there were bodies around him, and, as always, he pushed on. The noise in the battlefield made it feel like they were going to split the planet in half, there was no getting used to that, there was no soothing the ringing in his ears, the echoing cries and blasterfire and the unheard thumps of his men’s bodies against the ground returning - he didn’t hear them, but he might as well have felt it in his chest, each slam into the grasses, into the streets, like a vibroblade to his gut. 

They were making progress. He wasn’t too far in his own head to realize that. They were making progress, they were a good part there. He only needed to push on, keep up the methodical cuts of his lightsaber until they took the city, and they were halfway there already, then three quarters of the way there, watch his six, watch his men - 

Almost on instinct, he turned around. The presence of his Commander always calmed him, just a bit, he’d gotten a little too accustomed to it, to the bright light of Cody in the Force, flaring up in battle; he had more controlled focus on the objective than Obi-Wan did, always, along with his continuous effort to push on, no matter what befell the scorched earth around them. 

Cody was not there, and, for a moment, Obi-Wan could not understand why. The memory of sending him to fight in a different field came back quickly, then, and - 

_No! No! Pay attention!_

He shook his head. That was right, he’d gotten distracted. They were advancing, fast, he needed to keep his thoughts on capturing the city, the next enemy, the next, the next - he cut his way into groups and squads of them, wiping them clear out, leaving a path for his men. They were close, they were close, they were almost there. There was a street, the one after that, then the one after that. 

He heard his own voice shouting orders, he heard Waxer’s doing the same. 

The Force was louder than the both of them. The Force was the noise, the Force was what let their voices pass into the air and into battle, the Force was what gave all their actions any meaning; but when the Force called to Obi-Wan, displeased by his unconcern, it was larger than all of it, larger than life, its booming voice filling every crack in his being, reverberating deep inside of him, forcing him to turn his attention to it, speaking of foreign actions, events that weren’t taking place here, but perhaps they were happening right now, but - 

_You are killing yourselves._

It was like time froze around him, the blaster bolts stilling in the air, the smell of blood and waste and death around him dulling just the slightest bit. For a moment, a different sort faded in - the air of a forest, so much sharper with the exact same stench, the exact same noise, but - 

_Drop the blaster. Drop the blaster. Drop the blaster._

Obi-Wan didn’t have a blaster. He held his lightsaber, roaring back to life just in time for him to knock back a bolt that was heading right for his temple. He stood up straighter, and he knew standing still in the middle of the battlefield was like asking to be trampled or shot, but the Force in his head was so clear, sloshing through him like an electric current, a warning and a plea and a cry all at the same time - 

_Stop firing! Stop firing!_

He wasn’t bloody firing. He didn’t carry a blaster.

He shook his head and then did it again, anything to stop those damned thoughts that didn’t even belong to him, those warnings that made no sense and hadn’t been making sense since he’d sent Cody out and started the assault on the - 

_Cody_.

For the second time, it all screeched to a halt as the weight of the Force on him grew tenfold. He didn’t stop his hand this time, leaping and cutting and fighting, he couldn’t afford not to - but he did it on autopilot, and he felt his own mind burning. 

_No! No! Stop firing!_

His core froze over as he waited, tasting ashes on his tongue, for the Umbarans to announce their inevitable surrender from their halls in the center of the capital, as his hand itched with the urge to bring up Cody’s comm.

He was right; the Force never warned for nothing. Something had gone very, very wrong.

* * *

The Umbaran General watched him with a sort of - well, he couldn’t call it satisfaction, as her forces had just lost the battle and passed Umbara back over to the Republic, but her day was certainly not soured by the fact that Obi-Wan couldn’t get his comm to connect to bloody _anyone_ from Cody’s company. He'd expected this, yes, as soon as he put two and two together in the battlefield, that something was off and that the blackout was expected, but it had gone on for too long to be a simple jam, and there were always at least a _few_ soldiers left, even if the rest had been -

Either way, it was not connecting, and Obi-Wan's patience, albeit honed to near-perfection thanks to Anakin and all that came after that, was not infinite.

After every last one had been commed twice, he put the communicator back into place and marched right back to his Lieutenants, in spirits that were perhaps a bit dimmer than they had been when he initially stepped aside. Of course the Umbaran General took maybe two seconds to notice it, the vulture.

“Trouble in the victor's paradise?” she asked him, pleasantly, unfazed by Dee’s offended rebuttal. 

“Nothing that cannot be managed, General Razia,” Obi-Wan replied through grit teeth, even if he himself didn’t quite believe the words he was saying. “The safety of the portion of your forces that have surrendered will no longer come to any harm.”

“Well, that sure is a relief to hear, Jedi.” She had a sharp smile, even if she did look a little dazed. She’d taken a good hit to the head in battle - at least she fought with her forces, unlike the other two Generals who bolted as soon as the situation got dire - but, according to the Umbaran medics, she’d be fine. “You won’t harm us, perhaps, that would not go too well for your reputation. But you’re not the ones I’m worried about.”

“You are, as of now, under the Republic’s protection,” he muttered, paying less and less attention to her as call after call failed. Cody was well-into the blackout, but was it simply such a long battle? Hardly. The Force was - perhaps it spoke to Cody, through him, but he had had no way to pass its messages over. And even if that was the case, it didn’t quite work like that. “Perhaps you’d like to call back the remainders of your army. It’ll save us both quite a lot of time.”

She scowled at him, raising a brow. “What mind-tricking are you attempting now?”

Obi-Wan raised his eyes briefly to look at her. Razia genuinely looked lost, staring back at him, her glare pointed and accusatory. He would’ve thought it was a concussion, if she hadn’t been green-lit by her medic right in front of all of them. “Does it look like I’m attempting to trick you in any way, General?” he asked.

“I hope you know that, whatever else you’re trying, you might as well just kill me and be done with it instead of wasting my time,” she snapped at him, making a strange whistling sound through her nose. He raised his eyebrows, surprised by the sudden defense she’d taken. “I’m not sheltering any more allies. As much as I hate to admit it, we’re quite thoroughly damned.”

“I’m not looking to interrogate you yet, General Razia,” he told her. “I am asking that you send a message to all your remaining troops, as is customary, admitting defeat and commanding them to cease blasterfire. Do you refuse to do this?”

“All of my men _have_ been called back, Jedi,” she spat at him. “Honestly. Do you think I’d waste my time lying to a sorcerer that can read my thoughts? Risk the safety of what traces of my people you _haven’t_ slaughtered? I don’t have any more comms to go over.”

“We know that’s not true,” Waxer cut in, frowning. Obi-Wan tilted his head, feeling sick to his stomach, and closed his eyes for a moment, quite literally listening to the air. “We’ve still got squads battling your forces in the northern sectors -”

“...I don’t know what it is that you’re talking about, clone, but I suggest you listen to me better.” She leaned toward him, just a bit, though looking intimidating was a bit difficult when one’s hands were bound in cage-cuffs. “All the northern sectors were abandoned once your darling friends took over the last supply base. I have no more information, the lines have gone dead. I presumed they killed everyone there.”

“That is not a Jedi’s way,” Obi-Wan muttered. She spun back to him, a look bordering on deranged in her eye. 

“Oh, you think so, do you, General Kenobi?” He hadn’t heard his name be spoken with such venom for a very long time. This woman could rival Ventress in her snark. “Well, I’m not stupid enough to rely on some code you seem to have broken time and time again. As soon as the base fell, the orders to retreat back to the capital were in. And that is what we have done. These are all that remain of my troops, this, I can swear to you.”

There was something, something that he was trying to find, in the Force, it was telling him something again, but the Force had once again grown to a distant hum in his mind, and he could hardly reach it. Cody had gone to fight the squad of Umbarans, meanwhile their General was claiming there not to be any Umbarans left, and so there must’ve been - but Krell had looked so certain, surely, he couldn’t have made a mistake so grave on a campaign so vital - surely, he knew better than to make uneducated guesses, to put the 501st into such a vulnerable position, and - 

Obi-Wan’s lips parted in horror.

“You can’t claim that when we have men out there engaged in active combat with the Umbaran militia, sir,” Dee objected, stepping up next to Waxer. “Two of the gunships I was in command of carried those men off. We got a message of confirmed action!”

Razia sank back, looking Dee up and down lazily. Tasting the words like they were chocolate on her tongue, she told her, “Then whoever else you’re fighting on our planet is far smarter than you’ve realized.”

Dee shook her head, stepping forward again.

“What are you on -”

“She’s telling the truth,” Obi-Wan said.

The Force around her was untainted by deception or bluff, only genuine anger at their loss in battle and his Lieutenants’ attempts to pin more blame she didn’t feel she deserved on her. So either she simply didn’t know about some of her troops who were still out there, or Cody was fighting some _other_ threat disguised as the 501 st out there, and Obi-Wan was _really_ trying to convince his scarce breakfast to stay back where it was, now.

The Umbaran forces were far too well-organized for the former option to be the case.

“How can she be telling the truth, sir?” Waxer asked, walking to his side. “Commander Cody is still - their battle is still ongoing, isn’t it?”

“It appears so.” Obi-Wan tried the comm again and was, once again, disappointed. He dropped his arm to the side, turning to General Razia. “You are sure you are aware of all your troops’ position? No companies lost, or off the comm lines, or…” He let the expressive silence speak the rest.

Razia raised her hands and pressed them to her chest in a gesture that would’ve turned to an oath if she hadn’t been bound. “All comm lines are secured. Except for those that have no more living members on the other side, of course.” Her smile was not any more pleasant than the rest of her rather revolting persona. “Oh, dear. You might want to find your Commander Cody, Jedi. Outsiders don’t last very long on Umbara.”

“We appear to have lasted just fine,” he told her, dryly, her words proving to be of little assurance.

“Sir, could they have been facing local fauna?” Dee suggested, joining him at Waxer’s side. “Perhaps those - slybex, for example, or a vixus?”

“No creatures except the Umbarans can efficiently disguise themselves as clone troopers, to my knowledge,” Obi-Wan muttered, shaking his head, bringing his comm up again. It was almost a reflex at this point.

Albeit he considered comming Cody again, he ultimately decided against it and reached out to Krell, instead. Perhaps they had intelligence Obi-Wan didn’t.

Nothing there, too. Well, that was extremely… not good at all. And very, very strange.

Obi-Wan frowned and found Captain Rex’s comm line. When that one didn’t go through either, the sense of cold, gripping dread in his stomach really began to sink its teeth in again.

“What is going on in that blasted base,” Waxer muttered, watching his useless attempts. “At this rate, we’ll have to be comming CTs to get any information at all.”

“I can do that,” Dee perked up, bringing up her comm. “I’m close to a few brothers in the 501st.”

“Perhaps that’ll be of use,” Obi-Wan agreed, grateful, as she unclipped her comm and held it out for him, just like Cody did - it seemed like that had happened weeks ago.

“Uh, uh, uh,” Dee muttered to herself, quickly flipping through the comm contacts and settling on one. 

The comm definitely took a bit longer to throw the call back to their faces, this time, so these were certainly not jammed, and Obi-Wan knew his Lieutenants understood that. Dee pressed her lips together and tried two more, her presence growing more and more anxious as both failed to respond. She swore, softly, under her breath, and commed a forth.

An agonizing moment later, there was the click of a connecting communicator, audio-only, and Obi-Wan’s heart dropped to his heels. 

There was definitely a battle going on. The static was barely decipherable, shouts mixing with noises, explosions, fire.

“Clue?” Dee called, presumably the trooper she’d commed. “Clue, do you hear us?”

The voice - if that was a voice - was definitely incomprehensible, if barely audible.

_“The – 212_ _th_ _-”_

Obi-Wan leaned closer immediately, frowning and glancing at Dee. “Can you -”

“On it, sir.” She twisted the bezel of the communicator a few times carefully until the audio cleared up a little bit - not that it helped much, but perhaps they’d be able to hear _something_. She then hurriedly handed it to Obi-Wan.

_“Dee – it’s the karking – Kamino Raid two-point-oh over here – see anything!”_ the voice yelled, a little closer to the comm. _“Clash with the – call back Skywalker – the kriffing Besalisk, you gotta –”_

“Clue, General Kenobi’s next to me,” Dee warned him, though Obi-Wan genuinely couldn’t have cared less about the man’s language, waving a hand dismissively. 

“What’s going on, trooper?”

Though Clue was pretty clearly trying to explain to the best of his ability, the static and the noise was making it very difficult. _“Sir, General Krell’s – Captain tried to arrest him, but – can’t fight back against those damn sabers, he can get four brothers at a time –”_

“What?” Obi-Wan could sense the confusion of the troopers around him growing into bewilderment, uncertain unease. “Clue, what is the General doing?”

_“–– Made us kill our own men!”_ At last, a message carried through, and both Lieutenants recoiled from the comm. The unease in the Force instantly flared to outrage, to horror. He sealed himself behind his mental shields, shutting all else off but the voice of the trooper, their only source of information, they needed to get to Cody’s company, figure out what was wrong _–_ “ _– 212_ _th_ _’s platoon, had us convinced they were Umbaran – and - kriff!”_

There was a horrible crack that echoed through the entire room, the noise barely muffled. Dee stepped forward toward the comm, swallowing. “Clue?” She sounded shaken. Well, Obi-Wan could understand that. “Clue.”

The comm cut off with another crack. Dee took a step back, breathing out shakily as she stared at the unresponsive device in Obi-Wan’s hand.

Obi-Wan himself, meanwhile, was in the process of figuring out that he did not, in fact, have his Commander’s self-control, because if he held the comm any tighter, Dee would not have a comm to speak of very soon. He forced his hand to relax, shook his head. The situation - something must’ve been a mistake. Maybe they’d misheard, maybe the man misunderstood their superiors, there were thousands of errors waiting to be made in war.

But the Force weighed heavy on him, and the memory of seeing a Besalisk cut in vicious Jar’kai with two double-bladed lightsabers at once was not comforting in the slightest. 

_You're killing yourselves,_ came to his mind again, suddenly, startling him. Was that what it was about, he wondered, and had he missed it by such a broad margin?

He had. He knew he had.

The one explanation that made sense was that Krell had, somehow, betrayed them. Which Obi-Wan did not want to consider, but this was the most likely conclusion and so he simply had to assume. And prepare. The trooper spoke of - horrible things, unimaginable things.

Shooting at their own men, killing their own men.

If the 501st had received the same orders as Cody's company had, to go march on the Umbarans masquerading as clones of the other battalion -

His heart skipped a beat. 

None of his men were responding to the comms. The 501st was thorough. And after taking over the airbase, Obi-Wan assumed they had men to spare.

Kriff. He pressed his eyes shut for a second. _Feel the emotion, but don't let it take you away from yourself._ It was not the easiest part, of course, letting this much - fear, what was it - pass through him so quickly without picking at any scabs, but he'd barely taken a breath and Waxer was asking him, his breath shallow, about what they should do, the answer obvious.

"I'm taking a company to Cody's last coordinates - three gunships if you can spare that, Lieutenant, medics on board as standard," he said, pretty sure he could hear the blood in his ears. She nodded, holding a hand out for her communicator. "We'll move to the airbase from there. They're likely to already be there, but I don't want to miss anything."

"Should you not keep hold on the capital, sir?" Waxer asked, glancing at Razia over his shoulder.

Obi-Wan pressed his lips together and made a decision. It was trusting his men over trusting Krell, and he did not like his chances with Krell, what with everything the Force told him, and then Clue’s call on top of that. And even if he did trust Krell - the clones were pretty clearly under attack. His trust hardly mattered. “It's likely that our new foe wields a lightsaber,” he told him, handing Dee the communicator back. “And it doesn’t sound like General Krell is very well-suited for command at the moment.”

“Understood, sir.” 

“I’ll ready the pilots.” Dee clipped the comm onto her vambrace and snapped him a salute before turning on her heel.

Behind them, General Razia offered a wry, curious smile after giving a shrill chuckle. “Uh-oh.”

* * *

During the few hours of travel, Obi-Wan kept reaching out to his troopers, hoping that, perhaps, they’d answer once more - and a few did. In the span of a few measly hours, Obi-Wan managed to discover three new things about the conflict in the north, and one about himself.

One. Deceived, the 212th and the 501st suffered far greater casualties as a result of them fighting Krell rather than each other – Krell, who Obi-Wan was now certain had defected from the GAR - and the Jedi Order, with it.

Two. Neither forces had completely shot each other out before they discovered the truth, which meant some of the men from Cody’s company were still alive.

Three. Cody himself was nowhere to be found nor able to be contacted, and Obi-Wan had to physically pry his own hand away from the comm when he tried to send him a message for the sixth time. It wouldn’t get through anyway.

Four. It had been a while since Obi-Wan fought someone with a double-bladed lightsaber, but he was very, very certain this would end much the same way his last duel with an innocent-slaughtering Sith did. He’d make sure of it.

The ships touched down on the ground only a few hours after departure, employing modified carriers built specifically with speed in mind, crucial in the taking of the capital but no longer vital. They landed a little farther from the base, picking an empty spot in a clearing on the outskirts of the nearby forests. 

As soon as they stepped out, Obi-Wan realized it made little difference where they had landed. This was a battlefield, here, everywhere, bodies strewn about, though most here were still alive - and there was some 212th gold among the armour, some unmoving, others pacing about, and it was so dark, as it was everywhere on Umbara - and there was _noise_ , medics yelling orders, taking precedence over all other officers, but it didn’t appear that many officers were here either way, most probably brought back to the base or dead or - 

Good Force, where was Cody?

He couldn’t help it - he ran down to the ground along with his men like a Padawan, as quickly as his legs would carry him, unlit lightsaber in hand.

Not that he’d need to use it. Quite clearly, the battle was already over. It was difficult to see the ground with the eternal darkness shrouding the planet, but the uneven, charred trees around spoke, without a shadow of a doubt, of lightsaber combat.

Or, Obi-Wan thought, horror pooling in his stomach and staying there, this time, of a lightsaber massacre.

The clones hadn’t had enough spaces in the medical wing of the base, evidently, or perhaps too little time to move the men from the field, as they were just - they had laid out the troopers in the forest, anywhere they could find even ground, and the couple of medics of the 212th and the rest from the 501st were mixing together, stopping by soldiers of the other battalions, as they often did when they worked together, so used to such battles.

It was different, now. They were tentative with brothers from the other battalion, shame - _guilt_ hanging in the air above, nobody needed to be Force-sensitive to feel it. 

It could hardly compare to the flashes of distrust that sprung up as soon as they saw Obi-Wan - at least from the 501st, the still-standing members of the 212th looked relieved to see both their brothers and him. He understood, he couldn’t imagine the _damage_ Krell caused, here, because so far all lightsaber wielders on the other side were more concerned with fighting the Jedi rather than the clones, but to have something like this, such an assault come from someone who was supposedly a Jedi, supposedly one of them - 

Yes, well, Obi-Wan couldn’t blame them if they felt betrayed. He did as well.

He turned on his heel to address the medics but there was no need, apparently, as a few just nodded to him, pushing past and moving immediately into the bunch, asking questions, integrating themselves into the streams of people with hardly any effort; the rest of the troopers moved past him with his blessing as well, asking around where assistance or guard was needed and going where they were pointed to.

It was a little harder for Obi-Wan as he couldn’t quite figure out what to do, and _Cody would’ve seen him by now, would’ve come telling him what happened, would’ve told him what they needed him to do, what was the best course of action and -_ Cody wasn’t _here_ , so he’d either have to find him or manage without the guidance.

Above all, the last thing Obi-Wan wanted was just… Not to find him. Or, even worse, find him dead.

He shook the thought away and stopped one of his soldiers passing by, who looked so exhausted that the salute he offered looked more like a wave of his hand. “Sir.”

“Taika,” Obi-Wan greeted, but before he could ask about Cody, he noticed something else, chiding quietly, “That doesn’t look right. See a medic once you can.”

“It was a Vixus, not - “ Taika closed his eyes, shaking his head for a moment. “Sliced alongside my face when we used it to get Krell, sir. I’ll live.”

“Living people, too, need stitches,” Obi-Wan told him. Taika looked up, eyes reddened with sleep deprivation and unspoken tension.

“Yes, sir, I doubt they’d be readily useful for the dead,” he responded and was about to step away when Obi-Wan stopped him again.

With no more beating around the bush, he asked, quietly, “Have you seen Commander Cody?” Taika stilled for a moment, glancing around, and Obi-Wan’s heart was still firmly lodged somewhere it wasn’t supposed to be. 

Then, the clone took a sharp breath in and pointed him toward the edge of the clearing, where there were… a number of dead, but not just that. There were some living men among them, though all quite gravely injured, quieter than the rest, their Force signatures - flickering, weakly, sometimes dimming completely out before twitching back to life, over and over again. Obi-Wan lost track of where the grief was coming from. A good bit of him was from him, anyway.

“Ought to be there somewhere, sir,” Taika told him. “You’ll find him. I’ve got to go, sir, be careful.”

Obi-Wan nodded, but didn’t find his voice quickly enough to say something before Taika was gone - and even so, he didn’t think much about it as he made his way over to the men, his breaths coming shallow in spite of a lack of physical strain.

He spoke quiet words of comfort to the men he found, the men who were bleeding out and gritting their teeth in pain, and though he knew it didn’t mean much, he tried to push as much consolation into the Force as he could in futile hopes that they’d feel it. If subconsciously. If unwittingly.

There were more bodies than he anticipated, here. Both in gold paint and in blue, and in none at all - and Obi-Wan felt the pit in his stomach deepen with every man he recognized and every man he didn’t, but he didn’t see the sun flashing in the dark, not yet, he distantly hoped he wouldn’t -

There he was. For a moment, Obi-Wan wasn’t breathing at all. He was pretty sure his heart wasn’t beating either.

The figure that leaned against the tree was clutching his side, head lolling on his shoulder. He was moving, he was _alive_ , even though he hadn’t been checked on by the looks of it, as weren’t the rest of them, and as Obi-Wan’s focus narrowed down he was hit with a wave of _hurt - disoriented - grief - too much -_

He wasn’t sure if he’d made the decision to run or if his legs had done that for him. First thing Obi-Wan thought was something along the lines of _Oh, that's going to leave a scar_.

The second, ... _Multiple scars._

He couldn't remember the third thought because by the time it arrived, he was on his knees by Cody's side, and by the Force did Cody not look better from close up at all.

There were shots that had - gone straight through his side, evidently, sluggishly oozing blood through his blacks and staining the armour, there were cuts on his face where they’d hit the helmet and bounced off - but at least the helmet was still more or less intact. The blood was a mystery; blaster bolts did not leave bleeding wounds, same as lightsabers. It was not uncommon for them to bleed later on, though, especially if something was pulled - and Obi-Wan liked to think he knew his Commander. He’d definitely torn _something_ in there. 

One brown eye stared at Obi-Wan, almost bright in the darkness of the forest. 

"You're here," he said, his voice a barely audible croak in the silence, and that was all. 

"Of course I'm here." Where else would he be? "I'm sorry we didn't get here sooner. Umbara is returned to the Republic." 

Hurt as he was, Cody put on a convincing act as a Commander, if only to give a short nod. But Obi-Wan imagined it'd be pretty difficult to care about that, at the moment. He couldn't blame Cody.

He reached out, put a hand on his shoulder, and Cody's head dropped to that side, dried blood on his cheek leaving a streak across Obi-Wan's knuckles. But if Cody could draw any comfort from his presence, any sort of consolation, Obi-Wan could sit here for hours until they finally came to take him away.

And it could take hours, he realized with an uncomfortable drop in his stomach. The base was hardly equipped with medical resources fit for Humans. Umbarans were Near-Human, but their medics cared for different types of injuries, evidently. The 501st comprised a lot of men, and many of them had been injured fighting Krell - and the 212th. 

The medics were very clearly bending over backwards, but there was only so much one person could do at a time. Cody - and the rest of the men - would wait until the medics could take them in proper, or until the Negotiator landed nearby, a proper medbay on board, bacta tanks, the rest of the medical personnel and the like.

Obi-Wan shook his head, helpless, thumb brushing slow circles into Cody's shoulder, between the pauldron and the strap of his chestplate.

“I thought I told you to be cautious,” he said, quietly, nothing there to mask the break of his voice. 

Maybe, under other circumstances, Cody would’ve given a grim chuckle at the remark. Now, he only stared, eyes wide and mournful for a single moment before he pressed them shut, threw his head to the other side, gritting his teeth so hard it was a wonder they didn’t crack. 

“Cody,” Obi-Wan called, seeing only a shake of his head, dark eyes remaining closed. He blinked, chasing away the blatant agony that was seeping into every crevice of his mind in this place, not the least of which was flooding him from Cody. “Would you look at me, please?”

He didn’t move an inch, eyes slowly fluttering open but staring off to the side, like he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t find it in himself to look at Obi-Wan – and Obi-Wan understood, but he couldn’t just sit still until he passed out, the blood was still trickling down his side, how much of it had he lost? How much more could he afford to?

"It appears," Cody managed, his voice thick with a weight he was clearly doing his best to hold back, "that I've finally failed you."

Obi-Wan glanced across the battlefield, at the red blotches on his armour along his golden paint, at his face, eyes full of despair that Obi-Wan had never seen before, not once, and the realization that he'd do most anything not to see it again hit fast and unexpected. 

"Never," he said nevertheless, leaning closer. "Cody, you never would've known -"

"I should have figured it out sooner," he insisted, and there was nothing Obi-Wan hated sensing quite as much as the guilt of an innocent man. “We fired on each other for too long. For - I could’ve found it out so much quicker, and one of their helmets was knocked off when he fell and - I -” 

“Cody,” Obi-Wan murmured, softly, moving his hand to the side of Cody’s neck, tugging him back carefully so he didn’t lean too far away. 

Cody closed his eyes again, just the briefest trace of dew on his eyelashes before it was gone, and his breaths were getting so shallow - “We - I just saw a brother falling down and then Rex, Rex stood in the middle of the field and ripped off his helmet and he was - screaming at us to stop, that we were killing each other and, and - kriff.” He shook his head, Obi-Wan’s hand dropping back to his side. “I almost killed him, General. I had my deece pointed right between his eyes.”

“But he’s still alive,” Obi-Wan reminded him. “He’s alright.”

“Some others weren’t so lucky.” He sounded, justifiably, bitter. 

Obi-Wan bowed his head. “I understand. But you must see that Krell’s actions forced your own. I did not sense any Darkness within him - a general unrest about him, and that was it, it’s normal during campaigns; he was good at hiding who he really was, Force knows how long he spent doing it.” It was true, he hadn’t felt anything around Krell that would’ve been out of the norm. But perhaps, a voice whispered to him, perhaps he should’ve looked harder.

Very deliberately, he tensed his hands to prevent them from shaking. This was neither the time nor the place. “It is through no personal failure of yours - or Rex’s, or anybody else’s but Krell’s - that you were made to do this, that you were tricked into thinking you were protecting your brothers instead.”

Silence stretched on as Cody mulled over his words, not showing much of a reaction to them at all. That was alright. He didn’t owe Obi-Wan acceptance of his comfort. Obi-Wan still kept him upright, though, and the skin above his blacks on his neck was quite warm - Obi-Wan took that as a good sign, glancing down, seeing if there was anything he could do about the wounds before a medic got there and – 

Good Force, he was never getting the image out of his head. Blood had splattered over the reaching sunbeams Cody had painstakingly painted on the front of his armour, mud was smeared over the rest of his pieces of armour and there were some needle-like leaves stuck in the blacks. He’d held dying men before and he was almost certain he would do it again, but never did he expect it to be Cody, blinking slowly, just breathing, bloody and – and Obi-Wan was nearly convinced that some sort of delirium was setting in, there, but – but he was still alive, Obi-Wan had to keep him that way.

The best he could do was try. And there was no try, perhaps, until there had to be. Obi-Wan found that more and more of the Order’s philosophies didn’t hold up when he was in an active warzone.

"Thank you," Cody said, quietly, and Obi-Wan felt a hand wrapping around his wrist, light, barely closing around it, barely holding on. "For coming here."

It was the bare minimum he could've done. It was. The capital was already theirs. "You don't have to thank me for that." He brushed his thumb in a little circle under Cody's eye, feeling his hand moving back and forth with Obi-Wan's. Like an anchor, proving he was still alive, would stay that way, Obi-Wan would make sure of that, would never let him die like this -

It was here, his hand pressed to Cody's face, that Obi-Wan realized he had been… Well, to call only his actions un-Jedi-like would've been wrong, he hadn't stepped out of line in any way, but nothing existed in a vacuum. His actions, paired with his thoughts and the reasons - or lack thereof - behind the things he did, that was a little less justifiable. 

It was not about his caring for Cody. He cared for all his men, he cared for nearly every living being he knew. He loved, that was what being a Jedi meant, it was not an absence of such love that made a man like him. But it was, perhaps, its overabundance. 

He couldn’t say he was exactly - attached to his Commander in a way the Order prohibited, that wasn’t it, his feelings weren’t tinged with the spark of possessiveness the Jedi aimed to weed out. That would’ve been wildly against all of his principles, for a start. He had never wanted to _have_ another person, never, but - how did he get here from simple care? Why was he reassuring himself of such things?

Staring, here, at Cody’s collapsed form, at the blood that was all over him, and _where was it all coming from_ , Obi-Wan examined the simmering grip of unfairness in his chest and why Cody’s conscious touch was calming him, in a very strange way. And he found one conclusion - that he was compromised. 

He was not, he figured, corrupted, by his feelings. He was not further away from the Light because of them, and he wouldn’t let them pull him away from his duties. Above all, they were a part of him that seemed natural: his instinctive urge to stick close to Cody, his enjoyment taken from the conversations they always seemed to return to both alone and in company, his exasperation at Cody always following him around with his glance like he was afraid Obi-Wan was a baby tooka that was going to walk into the wall, the way Obi-Wan’s heart had dropped when Cody’s comm was severed and he didn’t know if he was there, anymore, if he was alright, fighting, alive - 

And that was where the problems lay, he decided, pulling himself out of his own thoughts. That was it, the insistent tug on his stomach, the cold quicksand under his feet, the nagging question that had haunted him the entire way north, _And if he’s gone, what will you do?_

The usual answer, the answer of a Jedi was, and always had been, _‘Go on regardless’._

He found that difficult to tell himself, right now.

"Sir," Cody croaked out, no doubt seeing the hollow stare he was boring into the ground, probably unsure if Obi-Wan was disappointed, or angry, or upset, or - 

Force, as _if_.

“Yes, Cody.” He looked at him and resisted the temptation to let his gaze dart away. He owed Cody that, at least. To be able to look straight at him and admit to himself that it was Obi-Wan who had failed, not any of Cody’s brothers or Cody himself.

"Look after - the rest of them. Okay?" Cody looked bewildered, as if he didn't know what he was saying himself, but his hand slipped off Obi-Wan’s wrist. Obi-Wan closed his free hand around Cody’s instead, running his thumb over the dry, cracked knuckles. The seams of his blacks had gone out, the hand guard ripped off, taking the entirety of the cloth over his hand with it. “If anything.”

“You’re not going to die,” Obi-Wan assured him. Of that, he was certain. He couldn’t allow himself not to be.

Cody blinked. Slowly. “Still do. Please.”

Obi-Wan squeezed his hand gently, shaking his head. “Of course. You have my word.”

“Okay.” He just - didn’t open his eyes, then, anymore, his breathing slowing a little once Obi-Wan promised him that. “Good.”

Obi-Wan leaned closer, feeling his hand supporting more weight as Cody’s head lolled to the side again. “Stay with me, Commander. You can’t fall asleep right now.”

“I’m…” The corner of his lips twitched. “Trying not to. ‘S hard.”

“I know. But you must.” Very very carefully, he lifted Cody’s upper body to move him forward a little, to lean him a little more against himself. It had the opposite effect than the intended as Cody just sagged completely against him, unconcerned with the blood and mud running off him and seeping through Obi-Wan’s clothes all the way down to his skin. “Cody. Look at me, this won’t do.” He tilted his head, trying to catch Cody’s gaze, but it didn’t seem like Cody was looking at anything at all. “Cody, stay awake. Stay with me.”

“Can’t,” Cody murmured without even opening his eyes anymore. “...Sorry.”

Obi-Wan felt like someone was tightening a rope around his chest. “It’s alright. Just try to keep yourself awake. Keep talking.”

Cody muttered something - Obi-Wan barely even heard his voice. He pressed his lips together. “What was that? Cody?”

“Said,” Cody repeated, straining to raise his voice, “Always thought I’d go like that.”

Obi-Wan closed his eyes for a moment. “Again, Cody, you’re not - you’re not going to die.” He tugged him closer, moving him to the side so he wasn’t blocking Cody from the sight of any passing medics. “I’m not going to let you die.”

Oh, those were dangerous words. Those were not words to be spoken by a Jedi. Promising something like that was… impossible, really, and holding up an impossible promise by any means necessary was how Darksiders were made.

His thoughts were getting away from him. He recognized his anxiety, clamped down on it, and forced himself back into reality. He wasn’t going to Fall just because he would - well, he wouldn’t let Cody die, that much was true. Even if he’d lost enough blood to pass out, and Obi-Wan wasn’t exactly the most skilled healer when it came to the Force, he could… Well, he was certain he could do _something_.

“Okay,” he murmured, half-muffled against Cody’s hair. “...Okay. Rest, Commander. I’ve got you.”

The last tension faded from Cody’s shoulders as his consciousness waned, as he collapsed fully into Obi-Wan’s side, arms limp by his sides. Obi-Wan pulled him closer a little, just enough to get his hand somewhere above the blaster wounds. There was something beyond that, a tear in his muscle or some organ that was making him bleed; Cody could survive the shots, they didn’t appear to have pierced his gut, but he had been losing blood steadily for a while now, and, knowing him, he had probably asked too much of himself along the way. 

That was it. Obi-Wan furrowed his brow, focusing on the damage and trying to feel along its corners, wherever he could aid with his admittedly limited expertise of Force healing. He followed the traces of the ache, the burn, and found it, and pressed down on it like he was pulling together a stitch, like he was knitting a tear together. Cody twitched in discomfort, Obi-Wan could feel it through his own body, but he could at least dull the pain. 

How’d he get here, really? He needed to comm Anakin, tell him - among other things, tell him that _Obi-Wan_ could handle the Council business next time. They could summon him to Coruscant instead, he could’ve - 

One thought of Krell ending up in command of the 212th, of _Cody_ , and Obi-wan, in spite of not having eaten much the past few, felt his stomach climbing up his throat. He wrenched himself, again, away from the thoughts, away from the very troubling spark of hostility he felt, and realized he wasn’t going to do Cody much good if he kept spiraling like that. 

That is, if he _could_ do anything for Cody, in this state. He squeezed his eyes shut tighter and set to stitch together at least the corners, where he could.

It didn’t last long after that, anyway.

“Sir.” The voice sounded like - it was like he’d been asleep, waking from the corners of a dream. He shook his head, lightly, trying not to look too much like he just emerged from an involuntary meditation, which, frankly, he did. It was easy for even more experienced healers to fall into a trance if they pushed themselves too hard, so what did that mean for Obi-Wan? “Sir, if you’d lean him here. I’ll get bacta on him, you needn’t overexert yourself.”

“Was nothing,” Obi-Wan murmured, knowing even without Kix’s pointedly raised eyebrow what a pile of banthacrap he just said, and pulled away from Cody. 

Together, they leaned the man - still unconscious - against the tree, like before, and Kix knelt down by him, ordering out his supplies, diving completely into his work. He quickly clasped off the still-sticking armour pieces and handed them to Obi-Wan to stack by the side without even looking at him, muttering quiet curses at Cody’s wounds. 

Obi-Wan bit his tongue instead of asking how things looked. They looked bad. He didn’t need Kix to tell him that. But then again, could even Kix do that much? All they had now were field supplies, and most of them must’ve already been gone by the time the medics got there. And there were so many flickering lives in the Force that they had to take care of - 

There were no bacta tanks in the airbase. There were hardly even excess beds in the medbay. Hence half of each kriffing company being laid out in this forest, bleeding and riddled with holes and hurting, hurting all around him, shaken and dismayed.

Obi-Wan shook his head. They had to wait for the Negotiator. The Venator was their sole hope right now.

So, watching Kix hiss through his teeth at Cody’s reaction to the last bacta patches he was _slathering_ his side with, Obi-Wan asked, instead, whether he knew where Rex was. Kix muttered something, shrugged. Obi-Wan paused for a moment before repeating his question. This time, Kix seemed to hear him.

“The Captain comes for regular updates, he’s bound to show up in a few,” he told Obi-Wan, not taking his eyes off the patch which he was scraping the drying material from the bottom of. Their resources did not look any better after this. “Or you can go to the base and talk to him, sir.”

“I’ll wait here,” Obi-Wan said quietly.

“Are you sure?” He was done, now, folded up his case of supplies and stood up. Obi-Wan wondered how much good that would do Cody.

“I’ll wait here,” he repeated, making a point of staring right ahead so his eyes didn’t betray him by pointing out any troopers. Or Cody. Though he supposed that much was obvious. _Oh, dear._

“Very good, sir,” Kix replied, even though his expression did not reflect his words at all. “I’ll be off for rotations, now.”

Obi-Wan nodded, opening his mouth to add, as they all did, to medics, “May the Force -”

“All due respect, sir - please don’t.” Kix wasn’t exactly looking at him, but Obi-Wan felt the chill. 

He closed his eyes for a moment. They’d - Good Force, it was going to take ages for the troopers to trust their Jedi again. And it wasn’t like it was unwarranted. Obi-Wan may have been horrified by Krell’s acts, but he had not found him out in time. “Of course, Kix.” He bypassed the blessing, bidding him goodbye with a hesitant “Good luck.” There may not have been such a thing as luck, but with Kix’s expertise, he only needed his skill.

“Hah. Yeah.” And then he was gone.

Obi-Wan swallowed the lump in his throat, turning to look at Cody. He seemed - a little better, now, though his skin was still dull and his body tense, but at least the bacta was certainly improving things. Obi-Wan felt something settle in his chest at the thought, the most severe of his anxieties shrinking back, and scrunched up his nose. This was shaping up to be - worrying, to say the least. Yet he couldn’t let himself keep going over his thoughts right now; he was, well, not keeping watch, exactly, but he did cast glances at Cody from time to time. To check, uselessly, if the bacta had done anything, if, perhaps, his eyes were open again, or whether his chest was still rising and falling unsteadily - 

It was pure chance that he spotted Rex when he did, before the man even saw him. He sat up straighter and waited for him to finish up talking to a couple of other injured troopers, electing to wait until he was noticed instead of distracting him from some evidently much-needed conversation.

Then Rex looked up and found him, Obi-Wan’s sandy robes and red hair rather out of place among the troopers. Rex glanced to the side, briefly, like, among other things, talking to Obi-Wan was not on his wishlist right now - understandably - but he approached eventually, anyway, ever-dutiful.

“Captain,” Obi-Wan said, feeling like he hadn’t opened his mouth in ages. His throat had dried up. 

“General,” Rex replied, tactfully ignoring the fact that Obi-Wan was still leaning against the tree alongside Cody. Obi-Wan remembered himself and managed to stand up, at least. He figured if Rex was standing, after days of undeniable hell with Krell, then who was he not to be doing the same when he’d just gotten here. 

“I’d offer my condolences, but I don’t think that’ll help things in any way.” He stepped closer to Rex instead, bowing his head. “Let me cut to the chase. Will you need further aid of the 212th until we get back to Coruscant? All our available medical personnel is on their way, naturally, but are there positions left unfilled on your Venator that would need temporary replacements from our battalion?”

“I can’t answer that right now, sir, we haven’t done headcounts.” Rex glanced across the field. “But I don’t think that’s going to be a necessity, Krell did not - he did not kill _that_ many of us.”

“Which is a testament to your skill, no doubt.” Obi-Wan was completely honest with his words - a Besalisk wielding two saberstaffs, trained in the Force, granted the rank of Master? Rex’s men had pulled a miracle out of thin air by subduing him that quickly. “And - that reminds me, whatever became of Krell? Is he still imprisoned in the base?” He had worked on numbing the simmer of anger he’d felt before, but there was still no way Rex missed the disdain in his voice.

“He was executed,” Rex said, not an ounce of emotion in his voice. Obi-Wan was aware of the dark eyes on him, watching him, considering his reaction well. “I made the call.”

He looked up at Rex, raising an eyebrow. “But you were not the one to kill him?”

“No, sir.” Rex closed his eyes, briefly. “Another trooper did. Dogma. We have taken him into custody for killing a Jedi nevertheless. But - ” He cut himself off, suddenly, glancing to the side, shaking his head, just slightly.

Obi-Wan leaned closer. “But, Captain?”

“When we spoke to him in his cell, Krell claimed he was, I quote, ‘no longer naive enough to be a Jedi’.”

Obi-Wan pressed his lips together, nodding. He would’ve preferred to have Krell alive. It was always more useful to catch such people instead of simply killing them, it gave them much insight into others of the same mindset. “I see.”

Even though some part of him - probably the one that had been the most jarred by Cody’s pained breaths, his hands, caked in mud and blood, glassy eyes - really wanted to drive his lightsaber through flesh. 

“Maybe it means nothing in the grand scheme of things, sir, but…” Rex shook his head. “I thought it was worth mentioning.”

Obi-Wan hummed inquisitively, mulling over a few possibilities. “If you were asked to testify that Krell claimed he was no longer a Jedi, would you be able to do so with confidence?”

He’d stunned Rex into silence, evidently, as the man stilled in front of him. “Sir?”

“Rex,” Obi-Wan repeated, calmly, “if I were to make the claim that you had planned to execute a traitor who was willing to give out the secrets only accessible to officers of the GAR at a certain spot in the chain of command rather than a Jedi General, and that your trooper Dogma carried out just that order - would you be able to attest to that with no doubt or hesitation?”

“Sir,” Rex said, blinking, the word providing him with a moment to think. His eyes focused, then, and he nodded sharply. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well.” Obi-Wan turned to the side, the slightest bit, so he wasn’t looking straight at Rex when he said, quietly, feeling the sense of wrongness in his words and knowing he shouldn’t speak them and doing so anyway - “Then perhaps it is not too outrageous to say that Dogma did the right thing.”

For a moment, Rex looked like he’d swallowed his own tongue. “Perhaps so, sir.”

Without letting him think on it for too long, Obi-Wan said, “I won’t hold you any longer, Captain. Surely, you’re overrun - if you need my help with anything, though…”

“We will find you.” 

Obi-Wan nodded and turned around, returning Cody and sitting right back next to him. He was going to wait here, with him, until they needed him for something again. Rex lingered for a moment, anyhow, gaze softening a bit when he looked at Cody.

“Thank you,” he said, to Obi-Wan. “For taking care of him, I…” He shook his head. “Sir.” With that, he made a sharp turn and marched away, stopping by his other brothers.

Obi-Wan sat, then, half-watching Cody, half-watching the field, thinking up many horrible things and finding the explanations for very few of them. 

And when, hours or years later, the Negotiator landed in the base and the lights of the flagship overtook the darkness of the forest, Obi-Wan stood up and waited until every last injured clone was taken aboard before joining them, walking by Cody’s stretcher, feeling hollow - and crushingly exhausted. 

* * *

The medbay on the ship was far better than the one on Umbara. There were bacta tanks and sufficient space. The ship was practically meant to be used for evac. There were enough medics for a shift system, and, most importantly, each one of them shone such a steady and composed presence in the Force and outside of it that it was hard not to feel like they had everything handled, really.

Obi-Wan repeated this to himself like a mantra, pacing in the medbay until he felt like a nuisance, then moving out and marching up and down the corridor. Then he returned again and pulled up a chair by the tank that held Cody suspended in the thick, foggy liquid, his face barely visible through the sludge. He was his second-in-command, Obi-Wan reasoned further, determined to lock accusatory thoughts away until all was well and assured again, there was nothing strange about this. He’d even brought a datapad. Which was turned off and yet to be used, but he’d _brought_ it. Nobody could say he was just sitting there staring at his unconscious Commander and waiting for a miracle. Which was exactly what he was doing, but, well.

Cody did not look peaceful, in a bacta tank, though that seemed to be a common misconception; he was still straining, his face scrunched up, twitching from time to time as bacta took its course, finally flowing freely around his body, through his wounds. He was curling up subconsciously, shoulders drawn in, and his hands kept folding into fists and going limp again. Then again, all that was normal. He didn’t seem to be in - acute pain, exactly, so something must’ve smiled down on them at last. 

Obi-Wan wasn’t here for the initial procedures for his soldiers, that would’ve just been _weird_. But he did wait outside until he could come to the medbay and check on his men. That was less weird. That was… normal, actually. Good Force, had he worried himself into the inability to tell what was okay and what wasn’t? 

Obi-Wan was overdue for some serious meditation. Honestly. Not that there was a point in it now, as he’d just be launched into the same environment, but once they were back on Coruscant, once he’d talked to Anakin and the Council and put some serious suggestions in...

He’d have a session. Once Cody was out of the tank and breathing on his own. And conscious. Preferably talking.

Obi-Wan shook his head, rubbing tiredly at his face. Umbara was a mess, this was a mess, he was a mess, he didn’t ever want to see the damned planet again. 

Now that that was out of his system, he turned to look at Cody again - and saw, instead, Red, a relatively junior medic, clicking away at something on the control panel next to the tank. A few bubbles rose through the bacta before settling at the top. He turned to Obi-Wan, then, flinched back a little, like he hadn’t even noticed him sitting there. 

But then again, just because they had enough time for shifts, it didn’t mean they wouldn’t be logging in hours upon hours of overtime. Medics.

“He’ll be alright,” Red told him. Obi-Wan raised his eyes up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “The Commander, sir. He’ll be alright.”

Obi-Wan cringed inwardly. Was he really _that_ obvious? “Yes,” he answered, nevertheless. “Of course he will.” He offered the overworked medic a small smile which, albeit unreturned, was acknowledged with a nod.

“Got shot up good but there’s nothing that’ll do debilitating damage. Lost a lot of blood, but that’s what happens when there aren’t enough medics on site. We would’ve had to have four arms ourselves if we wanted to take care of everyone in that damned forest.” Obi-Wan had a feeling that he was being vented to, but, well, if anyone deserved to complain a little, it would’ve been the medics. “Still, we did the best we could. We’ll be better prepared, next time. If - If there’s a next time.” Red winced at his own words before remembering himself, shaking his head with a sigh and glancing back at the bacta tanks. “The Commander’s walked off worse. Take Nevarro.”

Well, Obi-Wan wouldn’t call whatever Cody did after their mission on Nevarro ‘walking something off’. He’d dub it something more along the lines of ‘limping _into_ flatlining like a stubborn bantha calf and then spending a week in bacta’. But what did he know?

“Thank you, Red,” he said, as warmly as he could. “Take care of yourself.” 

“Yep.” Oh, that was not the face of someone who would heed his advice, but the medics were just as hypocritical as the rest of them. “I’ll get a move on, now. He should be coming out in five hours or so, someone will come to check in. Sir.”

He bowed his head as the man ducked behind a corner, already raising his comm to talk hurriedly to someone - Bay, perhaps, judging from the conversation. 

Speaking of comms.

Obi-Wan spared one more glance to the bacta tanks. His hands still felt sticky, in strange intervals. The medics concluded that it had been an internal wound when they brought Cody in almost immediately, and off to the tank he went. Any more time wasted, and…

Obi-Wan shook his head, ridding himself of the thought and looking at the clock in his comm. Five hours was quite some time, so he might as well take care of business while he had it. Standing up, he left the room so as to not disturb the process with noise and passed a few corridors, finding the closest war room and slipping inside. He clipped a caster off the side of the table and put it down in the centre, glancing down at his own comm on his arm and checking to see if calling a meeting was possible. He expected to have other work aboard the Negotiator fairly soon, so the earlier he provided the Council with a direct report, the better.

Checking in with Mace, he managed to call for a session. Seeing the local time on Coruscant, he gave a low whistle, sympathetic - it was barely past four in the night cycle. His report was going to interrupt some very well-deserved rest for some Masters, but he imagined they’d want to debate the matter extensively, and he wasn’t sure he’d have the time once the initial chaos had boiled over and more clones began to return to their positions.

No later than half an hour after the meeting was called, the caster buzzed to life. There were some Council members missing, presumably on campaigns of their own. Some were holographic projections, same as Obi-Wan appeared to them right now.

The greetings were brief. _“Listening, we are,”_ Yoda told him, and so Obi-Wan took a breath and spoke.

The Council chambers were lit up only by scarce lamps in the walls underneath the windows, but the traffic outside never stopped, its hum getting through the emitter, filling the war room as the Council members listened to his report. The Temple never really slept, but its members did, a few evidently only roused from their rest very recently. Nevertheless, all eyes were wide and trained on him as he explained exactly what had happened beyond his GAR reports and his comms to Anakin.

Once he was done, for a moment, nobody moved. He could see them thinking, taking a moment, as was expected, to work through the undoubtedly complicated emotions the situation presented them with, to lighten the air, release the abundance of shock, disgust and grief into the Force. 

Depa was the first to break the stunned silence, stating, quietly, “ _What a strike. To both the clones and the Jedi._ ”

“The carnage of just one rogue Jedi was…” Obi-Wan tried not to think about the dozens of dead men scattered around the battlefield - they couldn’t even collect the bodies, there were too many living to treat. “...Jarring. To say the least.”

_“Bringing a Fallen Jedi to justice is never easy,”_ Plo admitted, folding his arms. 

“I did not fight Krell myself,” Obi-Wan corrected him, something tight in his throat at the memories of lightsaber wounds, of blaster holes. “The clones subdued him, and subsequently executed him as a traitor to the Republic and the Order before he could do any more harm.”

He didn’t need to be there to sense the quiet acceptance that overtook the Council, the thought that perhaps it was better that way, the very same one that had taken root deep in his own head, too.

Mace cleared his throat to speak again after a short pause. _“Very well. We await your return to Coruscant, and we will notify Knight Skywalker of the situation and your route.”_

“He knows of it already,” Obi-Wan assured them. “He’s ready to take back control of the 501st as soon as we touch down on the Galactic City.”

_“And, as of now, you’re the acting officer of both the 212_ _th_ _and the 501_ _st_ _, yes, Master Kenobi?_ ” A hologram of Shaak inquired, her fingers laced neatly over one knee - the only sign that she was not at ease was the paling of her knuckles where she was squeezing her hands. 

“That’s correct. Which is why I made the call to return to Coruscant immediately instead of waiting for further orders.” Shaak nodded through his explanation, receptive of his answer. 

_“We will see what we can do in terms of leave for the injured portions of the battalions,”_ Mace said, quietly, his mind already somewhere deep in charts and dates and campaigns. _“But it will prove to be difficult at this time, especially in terms of the battalions we’re speaking of. The 212_ _th_ _and the 501_ _st_ _are of elite Corps, so you understand why there may be problems.”_

“A lot of lives were lost during this campaign, Master Windu,” Obi-Wan reminded him, nodding. His hands were tensing just a bit. “Entirely needlessly, if I might add. The efforts ended up being compromised far more dangerously by treason from the Jedi Order than the Umbaran militia itself.” He shook his head, remembering the positively murderous look in Anakin’s reddened eyes when he finally got through to Coruscant, to Anakin’s commline, and clarified a few things in Rex’s report. Just before they let him into the medbay. “Neither me nor Knight Skywalker are willing to sacrifice our men to the sick amusements of a Darksider again.”

“ _I’ll assume you already have propositions, Master Kenobi_.” 

“Naturally.” Obi-Wan leaned back a little, looking across the room. “To begin with preventive measures. For example, more thorough meditations before assigning any Jedi combat duty. We all know times are hard, but if we leave so many issues in our Knights’ and even Masters’ heads undealt with, calamity will come far quicker than efficiency.”

_“Such measures are already implemented.”_ Mace furrowed his brow in thought. _“Do you believe them not to be enough?”_

“We have two companies’ worth of men’s bodies to demonstrate just that, and that’s not to mention the injured,” Obi-Wan replied, trying very hard not to let the frustration bleed through to his tone. “I am not suggesting invasive methods, they’re likely to do more harm than good. But perhaps we could risk delaying the dispatchment of new corps by a week or so to make sure the Jedi we’re about to make generals aren't teetering on the edge of the Dark side.”

_“It’s a worthy suggestion.”_ Kit leaned forward, black eyes staring through Obi-Wan attentively. _“But there must be action we can take once they’re on their own, out there, if we suspect that something has gone wrong. To prevent a tragedy like this from happening again.”_

Obi-Wan had thought about that, too. “Investigating high casualty rates of clones in the GAR under specific Generals could prove to be beneficial.” He made a conscious effort to relax his shoulders, his jaw. “Pong Krell had unusually high numbers of the men under his command meeting their deaths in even the least significant battles; hardly that, even, they were skirmishes. Upon closer inspection, it would’ve been obvious something was off - and if not to us, then to our Commanders.”

_“Where are you leading with this, Master Kenobi?”_ Looking very intrigued, Adi leaned closer to the holo. _“The troopers have all the information regarding the Generals they’re serving or will serve under. And it’s not only limited to the Commanders, Captains and Lieutenants.”_

“Let them question orders. Not only our orders, specifically - all orders received from their Generals.” Obi-Wan watched confusion overtake a few faces. “That is not say, of course, that there won’t be consequences if the order disobeyed is deemed to be reasonable.”

_“Permitted to do so, the clones already are.”_ Yoda was wearing a pensive expression.

_“But they do not know this,”_ Plo interjected, his voice emitting just a bit of static through his mask. _“If the 501_ _st_ _had stopped following Krell’s orders earlier, fewer of them would’ve suffered for it. Of course, that’s not to say it was their fault. Master Kenobi is right; they need to be more aware of what they_ can _do, instead of focusing entirely on what they cannot.”_

_“You do realize,”_ Mace spoke, clearly a bit conflicted, _“that you’d be enabling conspirators further, like this? Perhaps even those that would start a mutiny.”_

“With all due respect, Master Windu?” Obi-Wan said, staring unabashedly straight between his eyes. “If the Jedi in question was someone like Pong Krell, I think a mutiny would be well in order.”

* * *

At some point, someone was bound to notice that Obi-Wan had been sitting by the tank for an unnaturally long time, for a General who undoubtedly had other things to attend to. He didn’t. He hardly wanted to think about Krell’s betrayal anymore, about his body, somewhere in the morgue, unburnt.

(He and Rex had talked about it. _You burn your bodies, sir?_ the young Captain had asked, without really meaning to put the charge he did behind his words. Obi-Wan felt like his blood was boiling hot in his veins, for a moment. _We do burn the bodies,_ he’d answered him, nodding, wondering who it was that had told him. _But those are bodies of Jedi. And Krell, as we’ve previously discussed,_ and it was hard to say it, never easy, when one of them gave themselves away to a fate so much worse than death, _Krell lost the ways of the Jedi as soon as he began abusing his authority over your men._ )

Nevertheless, he was noticed. Bay dragged him, protesting and insisting that everything was fine, down to examination and checked him over. Had to reluctantly let him go - _only all your regular nonsense, sir_ \- but also told Obi-Wan to go and ‘get some fresh corridor air, for kark’s sake, General, the tanks aren’t going to tip over.’

Obi-Wan thanked him, smiled at him, and went right back to the tanks, where he spent maybe twenty minutes of contemplative calm before being hunted down once more. He was then briefly exiled to his quarters by Bay and the threat of a hypo. He smiled at him again, thanked him again, and went back, only glancing at Cody for a moment over his shoulder and trying not to frown at the fact that he could hardly even see him anymore, all the bacta having lost its clarity, slowing the effects.

He sat down. Picked up a datapad, started going through the casualty reports. All the words that came to him were methodical, cold, unnatural. They always were. 

It was difficult to connect numbers and people in his brain. The thoughts ran freely, stubborn, insisting on asking, just as he was about to immerse himself in work, always, _Are you writing down death reports, or are you playing checkers?_

To his horror, from a technical side, the two didn’t differ very much in war. 

The Jedi should never have been warriors, but what were they supposed to do, when Kaminoans showed them the clones and said _Lead them, and fight with them, and use them, and plan the disposal of them_ ? What other answer could they have given other than cutting pieces off their hearts to fit into the tight chains of command and twisting the words, welding them into _Protect them, and love them, and keep them safe_?

If they hadn’t accepted their place in the war, if they had stayed dutifully - and stupidly - on the sidelines, sure, other people out there were more than capable of being military generals. But some of them would be like Krell. Some of them would be worse than Krell.

Obi-Wan shook his head, swiped the datapad on again, and began Krell's death report. He found himself strangely indifferent, outside of the distant ache in his chest, when he wrote about the Darksider, perhaps simply because he’d shifted quickly from seeing him as a Jedi to seeing him as the enemy, not least because of all the bodies he’d seen punctured by a Jedi’s weapon that belong to him no more and no longer. A lightsaber was foreign in the hands of everyone but a Jedi, no amount or lack of skill could change that. His words were tinged with disbelief, with disgust at Krell’s actions, a straightforward and damning condemnation of what he’d done. And it was always all-too-easy to condemn, and inadvisable, but Krell? This, he could do with no fear of the Code or of his fellow Councilmembers, or of the GAR.

His hands froze up, though, when it came to the carnage Krell left in his wake. His hands froze up, and he only got a few words in.

Kark, he was not made to see the lives of men written as numbers and statistics and comparisons. His mind could hardly process those things, kept coming back to the thought of how every one of those units, every checker piece, so to speak, was a grown man, woman or otherwise. Those who survived, and those who did not. There were more and more of the latter with every passing battle - but Umbara was, so far, the champion among those horrible statistics. 

Obi-Wan sighed, pushed the datapad away, and allowed himself a minute of stillness, putting his head in his hands and closing his eyes. Umbara was supposed to be - well, not an easy campaign by any means, but it certainly wasn’t supposed to turn into the treacherous nightmare that it ended up being. Even when he closed his eyes, a little light got through his eyelids, and he could see his men shot down by their own brothers and pinned like butterflies to the ground by lightsaber wounds through their guts, through their chests, some of them just had - their legs, their arms cut off, there were stumps where limbs used to be, and - 

\- it was good, then, perhaps, that Cody was shot before that, it was good, perhaps, that he was there, on the ground already, not in the eye of the storm, not having to face the violent slashes of Jar’Kai, because Cody was always in front of his men, always in the lead, shielding so others didn’t have to, endlessly dutiful and endlessly brave, and - and perhaps Cody’s brothers had saved him, by putting three blaster bolts in his side, because Cody would’ve marched forward until he was gutted, and - Obi-Wan’s Commander was strong and skilled, but there was no attacking a lightsaber without one of his own, and surely, he would’ve - perhaps it was better, then, that he - 

Obi-Wan more so felt a pained noise rise through his throat than heard it, dropping his hands and shoving himself away from the table, the datapad forgotten entirely. Karking hell; what was _wrong_ with him?

One of his men getting injured should not have had this effect on him, because that was who Cody was: one of his men. So many of them had died. So many of them had been shot down by their own brothers, so many of them had shot each other, had done the unimaginable, and maybe Cody didn’t have to face Krell, but others did. 

And he cared for them, he cared for all of them, and there was nothing wrong with it, but Cody was… Perhaps they’d been there for each other enough times that Obi-Wan just felt guilty he wasn’t, this time, when Cody needed his aid most. When his men needed him most, he wasn’t there. And the rest took the capital, yes, and Umbara was claimed, yes, and Obi-Wan watched Dee interrogating General Razia, and Cody was on the other side of the planet, bleeding out slowly through the tears in his flesh.

He put his hands to his eyes for a moment and held them there, pressing firmly until colourful spots dyed the darkness and he dropped them to his lap again, blinking through the flashes. He pulled himself back to the table and finished the report, then checked the clock, and - hoped that the process would be over soon, more clones would be taken from the tanks, and he’d hear passing chatter through his door again. And the Negotiator wouldn’t seem like such a ghost ship anymore.

Honestly, as minutes - hours - ticked away, Obi-Wan couldn’t remember if he’d even slept, as Bay had ordered him to. Maybe he’d sat there and stared into the wall until there were no more thoughts in his head, and maybe he’d just spiraled down until he didn’t have the energy to go any further, but then the comm on his forearm was going off, and he was blinking himself awake, feeling no less like his eyes had swollen shut.

Red had shot him a text transmission. 

_The Commander is out_.

Obi-Wan miraculously lost all sleep dust in his eyes and leapt to his feet, rereading the message for clarification. Red had thrown in a smiling emoticon on top, probably to poke fun at his concern. Obi-Wan shook his head, chuckling humorlessly as he crossed the room and opened the door. This sly, delightful shiny.

Outside his quarters, Obi-Wan stopped in his tracks for a moment. Was this appropriate, really - he’d spent more than enough time getting under the medics’ nerves in the medbay, he’d just be in the way again.

Almost immediately, he dismissed those thoughts. Red sent him a notice, thinking that he probably had things to discuss with his Commander, and while that was true, it was not the sole reason Obi-Wan resumed his quick pace back through the ship. Unthinkingly, he almost walked into the dimmed portion of where they kept the tanks under supervision, and, feeling his ears burning up, made an awkward turn to go a little bit further.

Perhaps he really should’ve slept. He’ll be no good speaking to Cody, like this.

Force, what was he even supposed to say? Would Cody even remember what had happened? There was hardly something he _could_ say, really, with things being as they were right now. He’d lost so many, and Obi-Wan had seen the bodies, and the casualty reports, and while he wasn’t going to let Cody carry all that alone, he couldn’t easily forget. What would Cody ask him? He’d be right to be angry with him and the rest of the Jedi.

In the end, he decided he’d deal with it once it came up. Follow his instincts and the Force, all that. 

He found Cody’s bed just a bit later, after admitting that to himself. 

Cody had bunched up the sheets in his post-bacta sleep, and, as most often did, he’d curled up into a ball. He looked - awfully small, like this, his frame far less bulky without the armour under the blankets. And it wasn’t exactly relaxed, the expression on his face, but it wasn’t the same carefully controlled and appropriately tensed mask he had on during meetings and times of leadership.

Obi-Wan sat down by the bed and stared into the opposing wall. It was probably… More polite. Or something. Certainly better than just watching Cody until he woke up. Not that he needed to see him to know whether he was awake or not, but it did make things a bit easier. He thought still of what he could say to him, once he woke up, and found nothing.

It was after a good while that there was a stir in the Force and Obi-Wan turned his gaze to see Cody already looking at him, dark eyes still a bit clouded with confusion. He glanced away from Obi-Wan, a little to the side, probably trying to orient himself better, to recall what had happened to him.

Tentatively, Obi-Wan leaned closer. “Welcome back, dear Commander.” He made an attempt at a smile. He was good at those, usually. “It’s good to see you awake.”

Cody stared at him for a long moment, blinking slowly. Something dimmed in him, his very Force signature wrenched with grief at the return of recollection. He closed his eyes for a moment, turning his head away from Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan waited. Obi-Wan would always wait.

"You look awful," Cody managed at last, and Obi-Wan choked, on - something akin to laughter, but with all the joy sucked out. 

"You think so, Cody?" He shook his head. “Out of the two of us, only one is slathered in bacta and bound in patches and stitches like a stack of flimsiwork.”

Cody made a face at the imaginative description, a grimace of both exasperation and pain.

“But I’m alive.”

Obi-Wan narrowed his eyes. “I’d certainly hope so.”

“How many aren’t?” His voice, if quiet, was even. He wasn’t responding to any consolation Obi-Wan pushed his way in the Force either - which, he usually didn’t. It was like he was closed off to everything and everyone during situations of high stress, letting only his most factual thoughts process. It wasn’t very uncommon, really, among people who went through so much grief on the daily.

Still, Obi-Wan wished his eyes weren’t so damn empty.

“A company,” he replied, “in the initial skirmish between the battalions.”

Cody took note of his hesitation, looking up to stare him in the eyes. “And Krell? Did he kill brothers?”

Cody hadn’t seen the bodies on the ground, the wounds, hadn’t sensed the horrible stench of seared flesh - not a lot of it, at least. “Yes.” Obi-Wan laced his fingers together down in his lap, where Cody couldn’t see his hands, and squeezed, as hard as he could. “He did. Another two companies’ worth.”

He barely caught Cody’s utterly hopeless ‘damn it all to hell,’ muttered under his breath.

“How did - “ He breathed, and Obi-Wan leaned closer, subconsciously. “How did this happen?” 

Obi-Wan hated, _hated_ the fact that he could answer that. “Through horrible corruption. That’s what - that’s what the Dark side does. There was no remorse Krell could feel at that point, he had no moral or ethical standards to speak of.”

Cody’s hands tensed over the blanket. “He wasn’t like that before the war, was he.” It wasn’t a question.

“I wouldn’t know that,” Obi-Wan confessed. “I did not know him. But I’d imagine this did happen sometime during the war, yes.”

Obi-Wan sensed a - sting, or a ripple, perhaps, because while his Commander had always been reasonable, he had little cause to be that way right now. He’d just woken from a bacta-induced coma, a good portion of his brothers were gone because of Krell, a man who was once a Jedi, like Obi-Wan, and Obi-Wan didn’t look closely enough to find that Krell had been one no longer.

“So it can happen to…” Cody blinked, brow furrowed. “To any of you. At any point. You can just - go Dark, and - this is what happens?”

Obi-Wan snapped his head up to look at him in horror. “Cody, no. Absolutely not.” Faced with a skeptical raise of his eyebrow, he shook his head. “I’m - I’m not lying to you. We have extensive training in the Temple, it’s why the Order is even operational; we keep each other in the Light through close proximity and discipline. The Dark side is powerful and tempting, but it’s not all-mighty - “

“All that didn’t really do much for Krell, though, did it.” Cody’s voice was cold, and Obi-Wan understood, of course he did, the Jedi had never just turned around in combat and _killed_ them - 

Obi-Wan bowed his head and held it there, not a sufficient apology, not a salve for any of Cody’s wounds, but it was the best he could do. “You’re right. It did not. There is no one reason people Fall. If there was, we’d all be secure in the knowledge of how to avoid it. But it weasels in through the most prominent cracks of a person, rarely even noticeable, at first. And because of this, it’s more of a slow bend rather than an instant snap. It’s very difficult to find.” He shook his head, staring at the ground. “But - when it comes to Krell, in hindsight, it was getting madly obvious. We should have seen it earlier, indeed. It’s ridiculously unfair to be the example case, and I understand it, but - we’re working as best as we can to make sure nothing like this happens again. The Council is entertaining ideas of setting acting-General positions, even if some would juggle two corps at a time for a short while, they’d give you files ahead of time, things like that.” He sighed, making a helpless little gesture with his hands. “I’m sorry, dear Cody. You and your brothers never should have been put through this.”

When he finally raised his eyes to look at him, Cody was watching him right back - contemplative, almost. In thought. “You just sound like me.” Those weren’t exactly bitter words, but the cold had thawed away. “I’m not angry with you. Or with the Jedi as a whole, even.” He turned his eyes to the ceiling, the corners of his mouth twitching downward. “But Krell - kriff, Rex should’ve shot him in the back the moment he turned it on them.” He listened for Obi-Wan’s reaction, clearly, eyes widening a little when Obi-Wan had no rebuke to give, no chiding words. 

Instead, quietly, like confessing a crime, Obi-Wan agreed, “Perhaps he should have.”

Cody shook his head with a sigh, then, pressing his lips firmly together. "You should’ve heard Rex's voice," he said, so tired, so hollow, and Obi-Wan thought that perhaps he should hear his own, right now. "...Sir."

"Please don't," he asked, softly. Cody hadn’t called him that for the entire duration of their conversation, and he really didn’t need him to start now. 

Cody nodded, paused - and jolted, then, hoisting himself up onto his elbows with a grimace. “Where is Rex, General? Is he - “

“Alright, he’s alright,” Obi-Wan assured him quickly, coaxing him back down, wincing at the hiss that whistled through Cody’s teeth. “He’s just fine. There was barely a scratch on him, last time I saw him. He’s on Anakin’s ship. We’re returning to Coruscant. Anakin is taking back the lead of the 501st, too. I don’t think he’s ever letting them go again.” He shook his head, giving a sad chuckle before pressing his palm against Cody’s wrist, gently. He was cold. It was strange; clones usually ran hotter than him. But at least he had the knowledge that his hand felt warm, instead. “And trust me when I say this, I’m going to try my hardest not to get myself sent anywhere from any campaign, too.”

Cody blinked a little, turning to look at him again, searching his face for - something, evidently, and perhaps he found it. “General, you - “ He pressed his lips together, gluing his gaze back to the ceiling, deciding against whatever he was going to say. Offering a small, joyless smile, he jabbed, “You’re going to be reasonable with your medbay visits, then, yes?”

“Cody,” Obi-Wan said, channeling all the patience he had into the name, “would you please tell me which one of us just got pulled out of a bacta tank?”

“I’ll consider your point, sir.” Cody closed his eyes. See no evil, indeed. His eyes were still shut when he told Obi-Wan, quietly, “Thank you. Again. For coming to us yourself. And I - “ He glanced down at Obi-Wan’s belt, then, admitting, “I saw the lightsaber. You were going to fight Krell.”

Obi-Wan swallowed, making a conscious effort to feel the weight of his weapon against his hip. Cody didn’t need an answer. He knew it already. Obi-Wan came ready to cross blades.

“If there was something I could’ve done,” he told Cody, barely audible, “then I would have done it with no hesitation.” 

He must’ve imagined the - incredibly sad, but still - blooming fondness in the Force, coming from Cody. “I know you would’ve,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, as much as his position allowed. “You kept me alive, after.”

Obi-Wan kept his eyes downcast. “You were bleeding out, there wasn’t much I could’ve helped with.”

“And yet.” Cody’s voice was a low grumble, so unbelievably him and - alive, that Obi-Wan’s eyes darted back up to him on instinct.

Very, very carefully, he agreed, coming to rest his hand over Cody’s again, “...And yet.”

This time, Cody turned his hand over, squeezing Obi-Wan’s wrist to the best of his ability, blaster callouses hard against his skin. Obi-Wan shook his head and, again, tried to smile - this time, it looked a little more genuine, or so he tried to believe.

This was by no means over. There were still mountains of paperwork, there were a dozen reforms, and yet here they were, alive. There were companies of men gone, marching away, and yet here they were, remembering. And Obi-Wan was not going to dig himself or his men out of this campaign easily, but in front of him was Cody, his chest rising and falling, his hand cold but twitching against Obi-Wan’s skin, awake and getting _better_ , and so it would be alright, whatever was to come.

If something needed to be done, he would do it. And with Cody here, ever-present, ever-lively, Obi-Wan was sure he could face whatever it was just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt text:  
> "Umbara AU - What if Cody had been at the battle of Umbara (instead of being wherever Obi-Wan was) and led the 212th with Waxer against the "fake 501st" and he'd gotten severely injured? (and I mean severely)  
> Obi-Wan realizes he cares more about his commander than he previously thought and should. Pre-relationship because we like the pining/Angst/whump/hurt & comfort, the whole mix basically."
> 
> god trying to write military stuff makes me die inside but it IS fun lmao  
> this drew me in like,, way too much!! kekekeke thank you so much for reading, consider leaving a comment if you'd like? :>


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